PR giant Edelman has hired RedState.org blogger Michael Krempasky "for his ability to connect with conservative audiences," O'Dwyer's PR Daily reports. "Krempasky, on his site, refers to the Edelman gig as his 'day job' versus his blogging hobby. His first mission is to play up Wal-Mart Stores' contribution to Hurricane Katrina. The world's largest retailer, which had over $282 billion in sales last year, has donated a total of $17 million for hurricane relief and is opening up "mini Wal-Marts" in effected areas to distribute food, diapers, clothing, water and other items to those in need. According to Edelman, Krempasky's hire demonstrates the firm's "leading role in trying to harness the power of the blogosphere for its clients."

"Mainstream media and most liberal-minded Americans are blaming the Bush administration's failure to manage Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath on racism, that word that has been itching under our skin for decades. The focus is on 'racism,' though, with a very specific, definition: white versus black. This analysis is good as far as it goes -- unless, of course, your skin is brown," Marissa Kantor reports on TheRevealer.org. "Approximately 150,000 Hondurans live in Lousiana, most in New Orleans. Estimates of Mexicans living in or around New Orleans range from 40,000 to 100,000. And other groups, including Salvadorans and Brazilians, also number in the tens of thousands. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates (conservatively) that 20,000 to 35,000 of these Latinos are illegal immigrants or undocumented workers." After an extensive look at media focusing on race in the hurricane's aftermath, Kantor writes that the coverage hasn't even dignified Latinos "with a place at the racism-discussion table."

In the wake of the Philippine government's cancellation of the $75,000 per month contract with the Washington D.C. law firm and lobbyshop Venable, Malou Mangahas from the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism has shifted the spotlight onto other contracts. "Since 2001, the Arroyo administration has spent at least $3.7 million ... on eight multiple, loosely monitored, and largely secret consultancy contracts for eight US-based lobby and law firms," he writes. Mangahas reveals that the Arroyo administration also has a $1-million per year deal with Burson-Marsteller, a $216,000 a year contract for lobbying with Bannerman & Associates and legal advice from White & Case LLP. There have also been four other agreements, including one with Patton Boggs.

"Strategic Communication Laboratories, a small U.K. firm specializing in 'influence operations' made a very public debut this week with a glitzy exhibit occupying prime real estate at Defense Systems & Equipment International, or DSEI, the United Kingdom's largest showcase for military technology. The main attraction was a full-scale mock-up of its ops center, running simulations ranging from natural disasters to political coups," Sharon Weinberger writes for Slate. The elaborate booth included actors, flashing computer screens and a "a dark-suited man with a wireless microphone [pacing] like a carnival barker, narrating the scenarios." One of which features a "sophisticated campaign of mass deception" that uses a fictitious chemical plant accident as a ploy to minimize the spread of smallpox."If your definition of propaganda is framing communications to do something that's going to save lives, that's fine," says Mark Broughton, SCL's public affairs director. "That's not a word I would use for that."